Lucknow, 29/10:The sluggish surface, a few intemperate shots and some purposeful bowling that was well backed up by the fielding unit, combined to strangle the formidable Indian batting line-up as England finally put up a show befitting of a defending champion.
While the pitch was always going to be challenging, India had another task to overcome. Having chased in all their previous five matches, the hosts were inserted first after Jos Buttler called it right at the toss. Interestingly, Rohit Sharma (87)
said he too would have opted to bat had he won the toss just to test themselves. But barring the skipper Suryakumar Yadav (49, 47b, 4×4, 1×6), rest of the specialist batters flunked the test as India settled for 229/9, perhaps 20 runs shorter than they would like to defend.